Category: media

The past few years (just the past few?)have ubleashed an ever-growing barrage of studio lobbying for Oscars. So the Academy wants to tone it down a bit, and has developed a new set of promotion guidelines. “Academy members are urged to limit parties to true friends, and to prevent studios from paying for the food or drink at those occasions. Studios are asked to refrain from spending excessively on Oscar campaigns and to keep print and television advertisements for films free of endorsements from academy members. Even gossip and innuendo are now considered official no-nos for academy members.”

“A growing number of states offer tax credits as a way to lure Hollywood dollars. But New Mexico actually is investing in movies – the state has established a fund of $85 million for the purpose. The money comes in the form of no-interest loans, repayable in two to five years. The state will invest as much as $7.5 million in any movie that passes muster with the New Mexico State Investment Council, as long as filmmakers agree to spend most of their shooting schedule in the state and hire a crew made up of at least 60 percent New Mexico residents. On top of that, New Mexico offers any film, whether financed by the state or not, a 15 percent tax rebate for every dollar spent locally.”

A new report presdicts that movie houses will be revolutionized by digital equipment. “Screenings of things other than normal films will account for one third of cinemas’ profits by 2008, it said. Rock concerts, Broadway musicals, football and wrestling are among the events that have already been screened. Content rights owners are only just starting to grasp the potential that this represents. The digital changes would turn cinemas into ‘entertainment complexes’ – not just movie houses – the report said.”

Pixar, the digital animation studio, once again has another hit on its hands. Finding Nemo has grossed more than #335 million so far this year. “Pixar have the enviable reputation of having a hit with every film they have made – Toy Story, A Bug’s Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc (2001) and Finding Nemo. It is a situation few other Hollywood studios can ever have related to,” and one that has changed the business of animation.

A group of some of the best and brightest film stars in Canada have come together to form a movie co-op production company. “In lieu of their (on average) $250,000-to-$1-million-per-picture salaries, these Canadian actors are going to work free of charge on the upcoming comedy, Mozart Loves Me, written and directed by George Bloomfield. And in exchange, they and the other stakeholders in the Movie Co-op will own a share of the production and any potential payout. Why, you may ask, would these successful people stick their necks out in a decidedly high-risk venture? Because they say they believe feature filmmaking – at least in English Canada – is broken and urgently in need of fixing.”

Is Governor Schwarzenegger going to try to stop Hollywood films from fleeing to Canada to shoot? Maybe. Maybe not. But “the biggest issue impacting runaway production is the high Canadian dollar. Five years ago, I could count on an increase in my budget of 30-per-cent shooting in Canada. Now, because of the dollar, you may get 10 per cent to 15 per cent, if you’re lucky. The gap is narrowing and the payoff for us coming up there is getting increasingly slim.”

While American TV has made little progress in converting to digital, the city of Berlin accomplished the digital transition in one fell swoop. “The lessons for American policymakers: The paralysis that grips the digital TV transition in the United States can be overcome, and taking away analog TV is not political suicide.”

“The election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor has sent a shiver through the Canadian film industry, which is worried the superstar and former body builder could flex his new political muscles to try to keep movie production in his home state,” possibly through a series of tax incentives. “Most [Canadian] provinces have tax credit systems that give incentives to produce films, so it would be hypocritical to condemn any U.S. states from considering similar incentives… But it would still be very damaging to the Canadian industry if California moved in this direction.”

Last year, media giant Vivendi Universal nearly collapsed under the weight of its own acquisitions, and came dangerously close to bankruptcy. Now, Vivendi is selling its entertainment arm to NBC, a move which will make the U.S. network one of the premier power players in an increasingly consolidated industry.

The Recording Industry Association of America is demanding that major internet service providers release a list of their customers to the RIAA, to aid in the industry’s prosecution of individuals engaged in illegal online file-sharing. But many of the ISPs, perhaps sensing something to be gained in taking “the people’s side” in the increasingly divisive debate over file-swapping, are refusing to release the lists and challenging the RIAA in court. The latest to sue is Charter Communications, citing its customers’ right to privacy as taking precedent over the requirements laid out in the infamous Digital Millenium Copyright Act.